Life Just Got Interesting
by Winters-Dawn1221
Summary: The Doctor is looking for a book, but a mishap with the TARDIS may just give him a new companion as well. A girl with a scared face and painful past, a girl named Ruth Granger. Slight 11th DoctorxOC. Read, enjoy, and review! :) Ch. 3 - Just a Bit of An Adventure.
1. Life Just Got Interesting

I sighed for possibly the millionth time that day.

Life was just not going as I'd planned.

When I had left university, I was on my way to a high profile job in Cambridge and a happy marriage to my longtime boyfriend and recent fiancé, Isaac Davidson.

That had been before the shootout with in the theater at home in Cardiff.

Some crazy psychopath who didn't know how to use a gun properly had pulled it out and started firing, ballistic. Isaac had thrown himself in front of me as the bullets flew like crazy and screams filled the air.

That was before a bullet had hit the projector equipment and the fire started.

There had been around three hundred thirty people in the theater that Thursday afternoon.

Only thirty six had made it out alive, not without injuries.

Both the unnamed shooter and Isaac had been a part of the heavy casualties.

I had come away with severe burns, one particularly horrid one stretching from the base of my neck, over my jaw and left cheek and ending in a puckered streak over the bridge of my nose. The doctors had said that it would scar almost like it appeared in the hospital. What made things worse, aside from my ruined appearance and the death of my heroic fiancé, was that while in the hospital, I'd missed the first day of my job. I didn't think it'd be that bad, but when I went a few days later, they told me I was unfit for the position.

Vain gits.

I'd moved back in with my mum and dad and they tried to help me get through the pain. I appreciated everything they did for me but it just wasn't enough.

I missed him so much.

That had been two years ago and I had a job as a bookstore clerk. It's not near what I wanted and didn't pay even a quarter of that first job would have but it was something to do.

Today was uncommonly slow, which explained why my thoughts drifted to the realms they only visited on sleepless nights. And those came far too often. I flipped idly through an adventure magazine, staring blankly at pictures of the pyramids, the Nile, the Sphinx, and other Egyptian monuments. I wondered vaguely what it was like traveling in far off places as the bell over the door chimed, signaling the arrival of one today's rare shoppers.

"Welcome to O'Hara's Books, how may I help you?" I asked tiredly, glancing up to see the customer.

A pale, skinny young man who couldn't be but a few years older than me was staring gob smacked at the promotional poster we had for the new Heroes of Olympus book 'Blood of Olympus'. He had a tweed jacket, drain pipe pants, a pale blue Oxford, and leather boots. I quirked an eyebrow when I realized his pants were at least four inches too short.

None of these topped the blue bowtie he wore round his neck.

Kinda like a younger version of my Uni history professor.

"Can I help you?" I asked, frowning. He looks so adorable!

"Hmm? Oh!" He turned fully around and faced me before clumsily walking up to the counter. His dark brown hair flopped over his forehead, falling over the top of his right eye, colored green.

"Yes?" I asked, frown dissipating.

"Yes, hullo," He greeted, smiling.

He's ignoring my scar.

He may be a nice and adorable person!

"Can you give me the date?" He asked, still smiling.

And now he's not adorable, he's an idiot.

"It's May 29th, 2014." I supplied, glancing at the clock with everything from the seconds to the year that hung above the biographies. "It's about three in the afternoon."

The man's expression feel. "May? I was five months off!"

"What?"

He's not serious, five months? I should call the hospital.

"Did you mean to come back in January?" I asked gently.

"No, I meant to come in October!" He exclaimed smacking his forehead.

"I..."

He looked at me and smiled again. "I'm sorry, I'm being rude. I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor whose-it-now?"

"No, no, just the Doctor, thank you." He said, smiling wider.

This is very disconcerting.

I wonder what this guy is smoking? The hospital will need to know that.

"Just the Doctor?"

"Why, yes, well, sometimes people call me 'John Smith' or 'Get off this planet'! But I've never been sure about that last one though. Of course-."

"Can I help you with anything?" I asked, blank faced. The sooner this guy leaves the sooner I can go back to my magazine.

His smile fell and he just stared at me. "I was looking for 'Blood of Olympus'."

"It's not out until October." I said blandly.

And before I could stop myself...

"Why are you looking for it in May?"

"Well, I'm a time traveler. I was just hopping through getting this and Rick Riordan's new book scheduled for next year but my time machine must've landed on the wrong date."

"No cheese, Columbus," I muttered.

He stared at me. "Don't you mean 'no-'."

"No, I really don't, shut up."

The Doctor frowned at me before speaking again. "What did you say your name was?"

"I didn't."

"But-?"

"It's Ruth... Granger." I said with some reluctance.

His grin was threatening to split his face in half.

"Oh, that's brilliant!" The Doctor exclaimed happily, grabbing my free hand and pulling me around the counter.

How could he be that excited about my name? It's just a name!

"What are you doing?" I demanded.

"We're going to October, Ruth Granger!"

"What?!"

"C'mon!"

"You - Ahh!"

The Doctor only smiled as he pulled me out of the book store and down the street.

I'm so fired.

"Where are you taking me?" I demanded. He needs to go to a mental hospital.

"The TARDIS!"

"The whatchamacallit?"

"The TARDIS! Time And Relative Dimensions In Space!"

"You're crazy!"

"A little bit, yeah."

He pulled me along for several yards, all the way up to a giant blue Police Box, like the ones in my grandmother's pictures from the parades in the fifties and sixties.

"It's a box."

"Yeah, let's go in."

"It's a box."

"Yeah... Let's go in."

"It's a box!" I turned on him and beat him over the head with the adventure magazine I still clutched in my left hand. "You... You... You are sick!"

"What-?"

"You-! I am not going to let you pull me into that-."

He pulled me into the Police box.

"NO! NO! NO! NO-! Neh... Uh, wha-?"

I blinked.

What in the-?

"Go on, say it, I've heard them all." The Doctor said, crossing his arms with a smug look on his face.

"It... Its, uh," I looked around at the futuristic room. "It's like... Is Star Trek real? Did Scottie beam us up?"

The Doctor stared at me. "Okay... It looks like I haven't heard them all." He started laughing.

"It's not funny!" I cried, "What happened?"

"Oh, Ruth, my dear, dear Ruth," he chuckled, moving up some steps to a middle console. "This has nothing to do with Star Trek. Why do people keep associating me with Star Trek?"

"Doctor!"

"Sorry, it's... It's my TARDIS, like I told you. I'm an alien."

He has now ascended to number one on my list of crazy people.

"An alien?" It was my turn to cross my arms.

"Yes, well, to me, you're the alien and-."

"Doctor."

"Sorry," he scratched the back of his head. "I come from a planet called Gallifrey."

I raised an eye brow. "Show me."

"What?"

"Show me this... This Gilly-may place."

The Doctor's face fell and deep down I felt remorse for suggesting it. Though I didn't know why.

"I can't... You see, there was a war and... And it was, it was destroyed." The Doctor hung his head and his hair flopped down worse than ever.

That's why I felt bad.

"I'm sorry... I-."

"How can you be?" The Doctor snapped and I started. "That was my home and my family - my entire race - and they're gone, gone forever. You're just a silly little human girl with nothing more than a scar and a boring job!"

"I-." I took a deep breath, pushing down the insult. "Look, I've never lost my whole family and the human race is obviously still wondering around like a bunch of thickheaded apes, but I - I've lost things. Important things. That is how I got this scar you know. I didn't just wake up one day and decide to cut my face up."

"Like what?" The Doctor asked, temperamentally.

"My fiancé... In a theater fire." I whispered so low I thought he wouldn't hear me.

He did.

"Ruth... Ruth, I'm sorry... I didn't mean..." He began, but I cut him off.

"It's fine, really. I didn't know about your... You people and you didn't know about Isaac and the fire." I mumbled, slouching my shoulders and moving away from the stairs in the magnificent bigger - on - the - inside room towards the doors and my normal, boring life.

"Ruth..." The next thing I knew the Doctor had bounded down the steps after me and taking my right hand in both of his large, slightly clumsy ones. I turned to him with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah?" I asked.

"Ruth, why don't you come with me... In the TARDIS." He suggested with a hopeful smile.

I quirked an eyebrow at him. "Go with you...? You mean to see the universe?"

The Doctor smiled gently at me, his face was so different from the harsh expression he had had a couple of minutes ago.

The change made a world of difference.

"Anywhere and any when you want to go... You know, except back in your or my pasts or futures or to Gallifrey or..."

"I..."

Should I go?

I paused, is it wise to go with this man I don't know?

But the TARDIS... His ship... It was either real or I was hallucinating... I rather hope it's the former, not the latter.

"Sure, what have I got to lose?" I smiled and the Doctor smiled back.

"Excellent, Ruth!" He tugged at a loose strand of my dark brown hair, which had fallen from the messy braid I had put it in for work, playfully before pulling me up to the console, causing me to drop my magazine. "Where to?" He asked, dancing around like a five year old at Christmas time, causing me to let out a laugh like I hadn't in years.

"Um... Let's go get that book you wanted!" I suggested.

The Doctor smiled gratefully before flipping a few switches and levers, pulling a couple of handles, and typing something in an old fashioned type writer and adjusted a quirky little TV screen. I smiled, bemused, when the Doctor whacked the side of the screen with a small mallet before grinned at it and me. As he did this, the TARDIS engines made a wheezing VWOORP! VWOORP! VWOORP! Signaling our take off, or so I guessed.

At last he stood back and smiled at me. "Go on outside, Ruth," the Doctor told me, gesturing towards the doors.

My lips tweaked nervously before I stepped to the door. I threw them open and a cold breeze - an October breeze - blasted me full in the face.

My face exploded into a smile and I stepped out. All around, shoppers went about getting ready for Halloween and Christmas, oblivious to the Doctor and I and the TARDIS.

"This is amazing." I whispered as the Doctor came out and stood next to me. "We really are five months in the future."

"So you believe me?" The Doctor asked, turning to look down at me.

I turned to look up at him. "I'm smart enough to know there is no way you could be pulling the Halloween shoppers and the decorations and the autumn weather without some kind of magic or science alien thing on your side." I explained and the Doctor grinned at me, taking my hand and pulling me further into the street.

"Smart girl, Ruth," he said as we approached a larger, commercial book store than the one I work at in Cardiff.

We walked in and the first thing we saw was a large shelf completely dedicated to 'the Blood of Olympus'.

"Those ones were never as good as the original Percy Jackson books were." I said as the Doctor grabbed the copy furthest from the floor and the least likely to be damaged by irresponsible customers.

"Really? I rather like this series myself." The Doctor said, coming back and grabbing my hand.

I glanced at our joined hands before looking up at his face, so obviously happy.

"Is there anything you want, Ruth?" The Doctor asked, moving us deeper into the store.

I glanced around before spotting an interesting book. "Uh..." I dropped his hand and went to look at the book. A few minutes later, I was carrying 'the Hobbit' under one arm with the other intertwined with the Doctor's as we made our way to the checkout station.

Once we'd checked out we headed back to the TARDIS and trudged up to the console. The Doctor sat the bag with our books on the jump seat before turning to the console and looking at me where I stood on the other side.

"Now where to, Ruth? Pick somewhere... Anywhere... Just so long as it's amazing and spectacular!"

My eyes darted to my lonely adventure magazine before returning to the Doctor.

"Ancient Egypt... I dunno, around the time of Rameses the Great?" I suggested, shrugging.

The Doctor gave me a dazzling smile before going about piloting the TARDIS. The time machine made its strange VWOORP noise as he went.

He paused over a lever and glanced at me.

"Would you like to pull it, Ruth?" He asked.

"Me?"

"Yeah, of course! Do you see any other Ruths' around here?"

"No..."

"Well, come along, Ruth!" I stepped around the console and placed my hands on the lever. "Geronimo!" The Doctor cried joyously as I laughed and pulled the lever.

Life just got interesting.


	2. Safe and Warm

"What are you doing?" I asked, looking over the railing at the Doctor, who sat in the swing, going back and forth slowly. He appeared to be deep in thought and I wondered if it was wise to interrupt him.

I waited a moment to see if he'd say anything but the Doctor only continued to swing. Turning away, I went to go back to my room.

"Ruth."

I jumped, startled, before turning back to see the Doctor climbing up the stairs.

"Yeah?"

"I was just thinking... What would you do to get rid of...? To get rid of this." He gingerly reached forth and ran his thumb gently over the scar dominating nearly half my face.

"Get rid of it?" I raised an eyebrow, startled.

"Yes... It... You'd... Never mind." The Doctor's hand fell and he trudged off down the hall.

My fingers reached up and slowly traced the scared ridge the Doctor had traced with his thumb.

It tingled.

I watched him go, pressing my hand to my cheek.

"Doctor-!"

He turned back and glanced at me.

"Yes, Ruth?"

"What did...? What exactly did you have in mind?"

The Doctor grinned and I smiled nervously as he ran back to me. He threw his arms around my shoulders and hugged me before letting go and rushing to the console.

"Doctor...?" I looked at him questioningly. Despite having traveled with him for nearly a month, the Doctor still baffled me ninety percent of the time

Even if I were to travel with the Doctor in the TARDIS for a hundred years, he'd probably still surprise me.

"Ruth, there's a magnificent, spectacular hospital and they can make you look like a supermodel!" He explained excitedly, dancing around the TARDIS controls.

"But I don't-."

The Doctor smiled fondly at me. "They're not. They could, but all I want them to do is help you." The Doctor smiled gently and placed his free hand once more on my scared face.

My cheeks burned with an internal fire and I hoped to God he couldn't see it.

"Why do you want them to help me so much?" I asked once he moved away back to the console and my face felt somewhat more normal.

What is wrong with me?

"You are an amazing and kind person, Ruth." The Doctor said as the engines made their customary VWOORP! Noise.

"Doctor... I let you buy weird books and eat fish custard at sporting events, that hardly makes me..."

"Oh shush Ruth! Let me do something nice for you!" The Doctor cut me off. He grabbed my hand and dragged me to the TARDIS doors.

"Where are we?" I asked as he began to open them.

"We are in Houston 200 in New Earth." The Doctor explained.

"Houston 200? New Earth?" I questioned as we stepped out into the 'Texas' air.

"Well, in the year five billion, the Earth blew up, you know, sun expansion and all, and as soon as it was gone, the human race set out and found the place. Thus New Earth was christened." The Doctor explained as an overwhelming scent of barbeque and fried chicken filled my nostrils.

"And they're best hospital is in... Houston 200?" I asked, clutching the Doctor's hand tighter as we walked under flying cars and between two hundred story futuristic skyscrapers.

"Actually it was originally in New New York."

"New New York?"

"Well... Actually... It was... New New New New New New-."

"Doctor."

The Gallifreyan smiled sheepishly and I rolled my eyes.

"Let's just say there are over a dozen 'New York's' in the universe in this millennia alone." The Doctor said, turning us off the main sidewalk. "But as I was saying, their best hospital was originally in New New York and was run by cat nurses."

Sometimes I really worry about the Doctor.

"I went there once with a former companion - she was amazing but she uh, anyway - turns out the cat nurses were doing things rather illegally so Rose - that was her name, you see - and I stopped them." The Doctor continued.

I nodded, letting go of his hand and wrapping both my arms around his left arm. There were way too many people - human-esque and outright alien - for my comfort. The Doctor smiled at me and I squeezed his arm tighter.

"Then what happened?" I asked as we approached a large, silvery grey building at least seventy stories in height.

"I came back around a hundred years later linear time with another companion, Martha (remind me to introduce you) and we discovered that this patch drug called 'Bliss' had mutated and wiped out most of the surface population. Long story short, Martha and I along with an old friend, the Face of Boe, saved all the survivors who had hither to been driving rather slowly and uninformed on the motorway below the city. That was, oh, some two hundred thirty years ago? They opened the Houston Hospital of Healing Hope and it has a much better reputation and health record than the New New York hospital." The Doctor concluded as we entered the great reception area. He reached over and tapped my shoulder before pointing off towards a fairly large window display. "And they have a shop! A big shop! I love a little shop in a hospital but this is just fantastic! Isn't it, Ruth?"

I smiled softly at him and patted his arm. The Doctor was getting far too excited. Before I know it, he'll be the one in the emergency room!

"Doctor."

"Yes, Ruth?"

"You're rambling again."

"Sorry, Ruth." The Doctor apologized as we stepped up to the sign in desk.

"Welcome to the Quad H Hospital, how might I be of service?" The receptionist asked. My eyes widened when I realized she was a lizard woman.

The Doctor seemed not to either care or notice and he smiled at her, his green eyes twinkling. "I would like to check Miss Ruth Cheyenne Granger into the Anatomy Reconstruction and Redesign ward."

That sounded like a bunch of painful and fancy words to me.

The lizard receptionist looked at me. "Are you Miss Ruth Cheyenne Granger?" She asked. My name sounded rather strange on her flicking forked tongue.

Cool.

"Yes Ma'am." I nodded and the Doctor smiled approvingly.

Dear lord, the boy loves smiling. You think I gave him free ice cream the way he smiles at me all the time.

The lizard receptionist pulled out two futuristic iPads and strange stylus pen things from a drawer and held them up.

"Good, good! Just sign here!" She handed me one and gestured towards the little line at the bottom of the screen. "And you-." Here she turned to the Doctor, "-Sir, I need you to sign here as the one who checked her in and as the one who will be the primary care giver during recovery!"

"Recovery...?" I questioned, becoming unsure. I lowered the pen after scrawling my name in my bunched up, yet loopy handwriting.

"Oh yes, dear, depending on the surgery you're having done, recovery could last from two days to a fortnight." The lizard receptionist said as I handed back my iPad/Data Pad thing. "And of course there will be a follow up checkup at the end of the designated recovery time to make sure everything went perfectly well."

I nodded slowly. That all makes sense...

"When can the surgery take place?" The Doctor asked, handing back his iPad/Data Pad. I glanced around his side to see 'Theta Sigma' in squiggly letters.

Typical medical personnel handwriting!

But with a ten year old twist...

He just keeps getting weirder and weirder.

"As soon as you'd like, Sir. We have fifteen standard duty ARR doctors working the ward. The soonest we can get you in is..." She checked her own iPad/Data Pad before looking back up and smiling, "...In three hours."

"Oh excellent, that is perfect! Thank you! We will be back in two and a half hours!" The Doctor rambled, dragging me towards the not-little hospital shop.

"Doctor... You don't need more... Stuff!" I yelped as he pulled inside the large gift shop.

"Oh, on contra, Miss Granger! This isn't for me! You need stuff to entertain you while we're here!"

I raised an eyebrow as he pulled me to the forefront of a large stuffed animal display.

Eighty percent of these animals make no sense to me.

"Doctor... Just bring me a book from the TARDIS library and I'll be fine." I said gently, placing a hand on the hyperactive alien's shoulder.

He shook his head. "Oh, Ruth! You haven't been to the hospital until you've been to a New Earth hospital and been properly taken care of!"

"It sounds more like a health spa the way you keep going on about it." I told him pointedly, crossing my arms.

"Well..."

"Doctor."

"They do have a health spa on the third floor!"

"Good grief!" I shook my head, but smiled nonetheless.

The Doctor gave me a crooked smile before adjusting his bright red bowtie and striding off towards the movies.

Actually, they were more like microchips and each microchip held up to one hundred movies in its core.

I think I like the future...

"What do you want? The Harry Potter collection, the Greatest Sea Movies of the 20th - 22nd Centuries, the-."

"I'll take the uh… the 'Many Adaptions of the Works of J. R. R. Tolkien' collection." I said, cutting the Doctor off. I pointed to a shelf out of reach and he plucked the microchip case from amongst its brethren.

The Doctor examined it before handing it to me, shrugging. Before I could speak, he dragged me off to another part of the store to examine hospital gowns.

"Why do I need a hospital gown from the shop? Don't they just... Give you one?" I asked, staring at the pink and the brown gowns the Doctor was holding in front of me.

"That was so three hundred thousand years ago, Ruth!" The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Now. Which one do you want? I rather like the TARDIS blue one..."

"I'll take the, uh, the royal purple one." I gestured to the desired article on the rack (some things never change) and the Doctor grabbed it.

After that, the Doctor pulled me along to the counter and paid for the movie microchip and the hospital gown (the Sonic Screwdriver still fascinates me even after seeing it used a few times, but why he needed to use it on a credit card...). Once I had my bag, the Doctor pulled me through the Quad H hospital ground floor to a cafe.

There, the Doctor gave me coffee (Andromeda Coco blend) and Texas Sweetbread toast.

"I thought you weren't supposed to eat in the twelve hours before surgery." I remarked, nibbling my toast.

"That used to be true, Ruth, but now they just give you a sedative that converts the food to oxygen which then seeps into your lungs during the surgery. They actually recommend eating so the oxygen lasts longer before they are required to hook you up to the breathing tubes. The sedative also reverses any effects on your body that the food might make that would hinder the procedure. Really, they've come quite far in the ways of medical operations." The Doctor added, wrapping up his lengthy explanation.

How he remembers all this stuff is beyond me.

By the time we had finished eating, an hour was already up. I vaguely wondered what we'd do for the next hour and a half as the Doctor pulled me through to an elevator.

Well, actually it was more of a platform with rails that went up to the roof and you could see out over downtown Houston 200 from inside it.

But yeah, it was an elevator.

The Doctor insisted that we go to the top, or the seventy ninth floor if you counted the basement and the roof ad their own floors. The ride up the elevator platform was intimidating and awesome at the same time. The city stretched out in front of us as we ascended and in the distance I saw a giant lake near the edge of downtown Houston 200.

"I don't recall there being a lake like that around the Houston at home." I said, glancing at the Doctor, who was looking out over the city.

"Well, you know, Ruth, not everything can be geographically correct." He said as the elevator platform slowed to a gentle stop and he opened the Plexiglas door.

Well, it looked like Plexiglas, but it probably wasn't Plexiglas.

"What's it called?" I asked as we approached the safety rails around the roof perimeter. On the other side, hover crafts stood on standby, just like the helicopters at the hospitals on the old Earth.

That's so weird... Two Earths.

"The lake? I believe it's called the New Ponchartrain water reserve." The Doctor replied thoughtfully.

"Really? I'd have thought it'd be between New Baton Rouge and New New New Orleans or something." I shrugged, smiling.

"Seriously, Ruth? Not everything on New Earth is New - whatever - it - was - on - old - Earth." The Doctor said, bopping my head playfully. "It's actually Deuxième Baton Rouge."

"What's that mean?" I asked with a sneaking suspicion.

"Its 'Second Red Stick' in French. I never said they were creative." He slung a tweed covered arm around my shoulders and I glanced at it before looking back at his pale face. "There's actually a large canyon called the Drainpipe of the South between the two cities. They call New Orleans 'Orli Jr.' Here.

"'Orli Jr.'...?"

"Yep." The Doctor nodded.

"You know, when I first met you... Like, last month, I thought you were smoking something whacky." I confessed.

"Gee, thanks, Ruth."

"Oh shush! Anyway, I now know you are as sober as a baby giraffe but these people... The people who name all this stuff here... They have to be on something heavy or something."

"They may or they may not. I don't think I want to know." The Doctor shrugged before tightening his arm around my shoulders. "Do you?"

"Hmm? Oh, no, I don't think I want to know either." I shook my head. His arm was very warm.

After several minutes of companionable silence, the Doctor removed his arm and I shuddered involuntarily.

"C'mon, Ruth, it's nearly time for you to get ready for the presurgical operation prep!"

"The what now?" I asked, wide eyed as the Doctor took my hand and dragged me back to the elevator platform.

"The stuff they have to do before they take you back to surgery!" He explained with an unnatural giddiness as he punched in the number for the ground floor on the weird, holographic touch screen.

The future is very odd.

Some thirty minutes later, I was sitting on a plush chair in my royal purple hospital gown. They were actually more comfortable than the ones from the 21st century but this was... Like... Oh gosh, the thousandth century or something or other.

There was way too much math involved in time travel.

The Doctor had been escorted out (some rules still apply even after millions and millions of years) and the medical doctors, a humanoid with silvery pink scales around their eyes and a long necked, green alien, came in.

"So, sweetie," the Lady Doctor with the scales said, "Your friend brought you here to have your face restored, rejuvenated, and redone, correct?"

"Eh, yes Ma'am." I nodded, shifting nervously in the chair.

"We will be cutting out the deformity and replenishing the proper skin cells." The long necked Doctor nodded to his associate.

"Cutting...?"

"Alright sweetie," the Lady Doctor said, pulling out a strange cylinder filled with a grey purple liquid and a button. "Give me your hand please." She took my hand and placed the smooth end of the cylinder on my palm before pressing the button.

A sharp, throbbing pain radiated from my hand and gradually pulsed throughout my body. When it reached my stomach, the pleasant fullness it had from eating disappeared into a bubble of... Of air that floated... Up... To my, to my lungs and...

The Doctor never said it would make me so sleepy...

"Ruth... Ruth... Wake up!"

"Meh, whosatalkentoma?"

There was a chuckle and somewhere in my mind it registered as familiar.

"Ruth, the surgery is over, you need to wake up now."

"Hmm?" I opened an eye before squeezing it shut moments later. The lights in the room were far too bright.

There was a soft whirring noise and from behind my eye lids I saw the room getting darker.

The sonic screwdriver...

"Hm, Doctor?" I mumbled, opening my eye a little to peak into the dim lighted room.

The Doctor's shadow appeared over me and I forced both eyes open. The smile on his face was dazzling.

"Wow, Ruth... You look..."

"It's okay if it didn't work, Doctor, I don't-."

"But it did work, Ruth! You look... Lovely... Even with bandages on your head."

I couldn't quite tell in the low light but it looked like the Doctor's cheeks had darkened a few shades.

"I know I've never been hideous, Doctor, but you don't have to blush like a school girl with a crush."

"Ruth!"

Yep, fixed him.

"Are we done here?"

"Yes..."

"Can we ever go back to the TARDIS?"

"Yes..."

"When do we have to come back for the follow-up?"

"Ye... Uh, a week from tomorrow." The Doctor smiled sheepishly as I sat up and gave him an exaggerated eye roll.

"Excellent!" I said, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. Before I could get to my feet, though, the Doctor placed a hand on both my shoulders and pulled me gently back to the pillow.

"They want you to stay overnight," he explained when I glared at hum. "That's why we got the movies from downstairs, remember?"

Oh...

"M'kay, get on up."

"What?" The Doctor gave me a funny little smile, hints of confusion in his eyes, as I scooted to the side of the hospital bed and patted the free space next to me.

"I'm not watching 'the Lord of the Rings' by myself. S'much better with a pal!"

"A pal?" The Doctor raised an eyebrow, but sat done in the allotted spot anyway.

"Yeah... You an' me... Pals, buds, Compadres... You know." I yawned as the large flat screen on the shiny, blue wall flipped on.

"Stuff?"

"Stuff."

"Do you want to know how your surgery went before we start this movie and you fall asleep on my shoulder before the first half hour is up?" The Doctor asked, shifted in his spot to look at me.

"Sure..." I yawned.

M'sleepy...

"They successfully removed all the scar tissue and regenerated your face to look like it did when you were nineteen - they have a special program for that - and now we're just waiting for the cells to fully settle and attach themselves to the rest of your face." I nestled into his shoulder as he continued talking. So warm... "I have to give you an antibiotic every three hours for ten days."

"M'kay."

"Ruth."

"Hmhmm?"

"Pleasant dreams."

We sat in silence as the movie started on the wall.

"Doctor?"

"Yes, Ruth?"

"Thanks for helping me."

"You're welcome, Ruth." The Doctor whispered, brushing a hand over my head, straightening my messed up dark brown hair in a sloppy fashion.

I fell asleep.

Safe and warm.


	3. Just a Bit of an Adventure

"Does it look bad?"

"Of course not! You're gorgeous, Ruth!"

"You're one to talk with your... With your chin and floppy hair and... And the bowties!"

"Pfft!"

Ten days ago the Doctor, my best friend, had taken me to a place called the Houston Hospital of Healing Hope (or the Quad H hospital as they called it there). There, the ARR (Anatomy Reconstruction and Redesign) ward had helped remove a horrible scar I've had for nearly three years. Normally, I'd have insisted against having it surgically removed, not wanting to seem vain, but when it dominates your whole face and makes you look like you'd gotten torched (which I had, come to think of it), things change.

For ten days, I'd been wearing bandages and taking an antibiotic to make sure that my face doesn't melt or something.

When the Doctor had said my face could melt, I had hit him with a dictionary.

He still has bruises.

I shook my head, bringing myself back to the present.

"Can I see it now?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. The Doctor hadn't let me so much as peak behind the bandages and I was getting antsy.

"Sure thing, Ruth!" The Doctor exclaimed, gingerly brushing my hair back from my face before using a tissue to wipe off the leftover lotion I had to apply every time the bandages were changed. Or he applied, the Doctor had babied me since we'd left New Earth. "Just one more... Moment..."

I let him do it. I like being waited upon.

I waited impatiently for him to finish cleaning my face and straightening my hair.

"Doctor."

"Yes?"

"I believe you're stalling now."

"Sorry."

The Doctor stepped back and put down the brush and washcloth he'd been using before he lifted up a large, handheld mirror. I bit my lip and we both smiled sheepishly as I examined my new (or restored) appearance.

The Doctor had pulled my dark brown hair, which normally fell to the middle of my shoulder blades, back into a loose pony tail before he'd removed my bandages and my face was in full view of the mirror. Subconsciously, I raised my hands to feel my cheeks, nose, and chin.

Where previously ridged scar tissue had dominated my face, smooth skin - dream skin - stretched gently over my skull, muscles, and tendons. Averagely, at twenty four, my face would hold a somewhat more mature visage than it had when I was nineteen, or twenty one (when the accident had taken place) but it wasn't true here. I looked like a university student again, but, any acne or blemishes I had had then were nonexistent.

I'm not sure how I feel about that.

The Doctor adjusted a suspender with his free hand as I examined myself in the mirror.

"Ruth?" He sounded nervous.

To his immense surprise, I jumped up and threw my arms around his neck, hugging him tightly.

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" I squealed and he dropped the mirror, placing one arm around my waist and stretching the other out behind him to catch himself on the table. "Thank you so much!" I grinned, leaning back to take in my friend's face.

We both smiled like hyperactive five year olds who had just been given a gallon of ice cream apiece.

"Let's go do something fun!" I squealed, grabbing the Doctor's hand and pulling him from my bedroom and towards the console room.

"Like what?" He asked, laughing.

"I dunno!"

We both laughed as we slid into the large console room and flew towards the central console. The Doctor slammed into it, pulling a lever as he went, before spinning around and pressing buttons.

With the familiar VWOORP! Of the TARDIS engines, we vanished from the Time Vortex...

...and appeared somewhere entirely new.

"Where are we?" I asked in an excited whisper. My face scrunched up with laughter lines it hadn't had in years.

Today was a good day to be alive!

The Doctor shrugged, grabbing a poncho from the coat rack. "Mexico, sometime before the 20th century!"

I raised an eyebrow. "Will there be chocolate? And hot cocoa?"

Coming to stand in front of me, the Doctor pulled the poncho down over my head before adjusting it.

He's mothering me again.

"Quite possibly, yes," he nodded as I batted his hands away from the poncho. He rolled his eyes before offering me his arm. "Care to come along, Miss Granger?"

"Of course, Master Doctor!" I nodded, taking his arm.

He gave me a funny look but, before I could identify it, he smiled broadly and threw the doors open.

Humid air blasted us full in the face.

"It's far too hot here..." I mumbled as the Doctor dragged me into the depths of the jungle.

"Nonsense, Ruth, your body just needs to adjust from the drastic temperature change from moving from the cold TARDIS interior to the humidity of... This place." The Doctor explained, pulling me by the arm through the foliage.

"All I heard was blah, blah, Ruth, blah, blah, temperature, blah, TARDIS, blah, place, blah, blah." I said, doing my free hand like a mouth, mimicking him.

The Doctor turned and stared at me for a moment, blank faced, before nodding vigorously. "Yes, actually, those are basically all the key words from what I said." He patted my head, "Nice to know you're learning." As he said this, he continued to pull me along, looking at me and not his surroundings.

"Doctor-."

"Oof!"

He released my hand as he cracked the back of his head against a tree. I laughed as he made a face and began to rub the injured spot where, no doubt, a knot was quickly forming.

"It's not funny, Ruth!" The Doctor cried, scowling at me.

"Of course it's not, Doctor. Turn around and let me look." I ordered, spinning my finger in a circle.

"Ruth, I really don't think I need you to look at my head," he protested feebly.

"Turn."

Reluctantly, he spun around and crossed his arms.

"Doctor, I need you to sit down, I'm not as tall as you."

Grumbling, the Doctor plopped down on the forest floor and I bent over to exam the knot. Gingerly, I felt his skull, noting how fluffy and soft his hair was.

"What shampoo do you use?" I asked before I could stop myself. I gave a slight 'aha' when I found the knot, it had already swollen to the size of a quarter.

"Is this really the time for that, Ruth? If you must know, I - Ow!" He cried suddenly when I gave the knot a slight squeeze.

"Sorry," I whispered sheepishly, "You may stand back up."

The Doctor jumped to his feet and dusted off his trousers and jacket. "Honestly, Ruth, I can take care of myself, you know. I am 1,200 years old, give or take a decade."

While that should have interested me (I still didn't know much about Gallifreyans, except that the Doctor was the very last), I suddenly couldn't pay attention. I felt as if something - or someone - unsavory was lurking nearby.

Normally the fact that your best friend is over a thousand years older than you would cause you to do something.

I just stood there.

"Ruth?" The Doctor looked at me, concerned.

"I think there's something-."

"Uh... There's..."

Almost suddenly, without warning, everything went dark.

What could have been hours or moments later, I moaned and opened my eyes.

I instantly wished I hadn't. I was tied to a pole by thick vines. All around were stone huts with pots in front of them and dazed, dusty cloths covering the entrances.

"Doctor?" I whispered hoarsely.

"Oh, lovely Ruth, you're awake," the Doctor's voice whispered back from behind me. I wiggled my fingers as far as I could and they brushed with his. "Yes, as you can see - you can see, can't you?"

"Yep," I replied, popping the 'P'.

"Excellent! As I was saying, you can see we're in an Aztec village. Beautiful isn't it? I've been to one before, long time ago. I got engaged by drinking cocoa!"

"You what?!"

"Yes, she was nice really. We spent most of our time in the old folks' garden. You know, where everyone over fifty lives." He paused as if in thought and I scowled at a weed. "I actually had the easiest time there, everyone else was fighting and leaving people at the alter before they even got to the alter and sacrificing Aztec rain god sacrifices and being accused of being a false god. Good times. Good times." The Doctor stopped talking and for a moment I thought he was done, then-. "And the TARDIS was behind a wall. That was the most exciting part."

"Doctor, shut up please and tell me if you have the sonic screwdriver." I mumbled as a thought occurred to me.

"Eh, it's in my coat pocket. You'll have to reach in and get it." The Doctor explained, "But I don't see why, it can't unlock vines."

I chuckled, "Doctor, it can fry the vines."

There was a pause before he replies. "True, yes, you're getting better at this, Ruth, well done."

"Uh, thanks, I think," I muttered as I dug around in the Doctor's pocket. My hand brushed a paper bag and I frowned.

"What is that?"

The Doctor craned his neck as if to face me and I pulled out the bag so he could see. "Oh, those are my jelly babies. Would you like one?"

"No thanks," I declined, stuffing them back in his pocket before continuing my search for the screwdriver.

My hand brushed past several more, possibly strange things in the Doctor's pocket and I had to hold myself in check, to not ask about every little thing. At one point, I think I found a Barbie doll. Cringing, my hand finally wrapped around the cool metal of the sonic.

"Got it."

"Perfection, dear."

Pretending to stick my tongue out at him childishly, I fumbled with the sonic's buttons and aimed it at the wines holding the Doctor's wrists together on the pole. I grinned when the vines snapped at the fried center, freeing the Doctor's hands. Now for the-.

"Cease your movements!"

"Dang it!" I yelped.

Several Aztec warriors stomped into the village and aimed their spears and clubs at us. The leader's sudden shout had caused me to jump (as well as one can jump when one is tied to a pole) and drop the sonic screwdriver. I physically wilted as I watched the sonic lodge itself amongst the stones and weeds.

"Oh yes! Hello!" Began the Doctor cheerily, "I'm the-."

"Silence!" Shouted the leader, "You will be sacrificed by fire to the rain god Tlaloc! For many months his purifying water has withheld itself from us and remained in the heavens! This demands a mighty sacrifice!"

"Now wait just a minute-!" I started but the Doctor kicked me in the calf from behind.

"Ah, of course, we'd be honored to be sacrifices to the great Tlaloc." The Doctor babbled and I blanched.

He is not serious.

I have potato salad in my fridge he said he could take me back to!

"Doctor."

"Hush, Ruth."

"Silence!" Yelled the leader before turning to one of his men, who held a torch, and I realized even before he spoke what he was going to say.

"Light the fire!"

"Doctor," I whispered fervently as the Mesoamerican man approached, "What're we gonna do?"

"Wait."

The Doctor began fidgeting.

"Doctor..."

"Hold on!"

A light breeze passed in my direction and a spark from the torch smacked my cheek.

My brand new cheek.

The one replaced because of a fire.

And there was fire now.

"Doctor, please!" I sobbed, watching the Mesoamerican get steadily closer.

"Hold on, Ruth."

The Doctor, with one free hand, grabbed my wrist in a vise grip, causing me to gasp in pain. With the other, he snapped his fingers.

Why is he snapping his fingers?

Suddenly, possibly the most beautiful noise is the entire universe filled the clearing and the Aztecs and I gasped.

VWOORP!

VWOORP!

VWOORP!

The interior of the TARDIS console room began to materialize around the Doctor and I. The Aztec warrior with the torch screamed girlishly and dropped the fiery stick as the TARDIS finally fully solidified. I squeaked when a small laser from the console zapped the vines, disintegrating them and freeing us.

"Ah!" The Doctor exclaimed joyously, springing from the pole and bending down to pick up the sonic, which had materialized on the floor. "Lovely! You are amazing!" He cried, patting the console reverently. "Now, let me see..." The Doctor grabbed my arm and pulled my stunned self off the wooden platform before pressing a button, causing it to disappear.

"Doctor..."

"Are you alright, Ruth?" He asked gently, rubbing his thumb over my cheek where the spark had hit it. I nodded, distracted by his hand on my face with ash smudged on his finger pad.

What is wrong with me today?

"I... I'm good." I whispered, not quite trusting my voice.

"Fantastic!" The Doctor grinned, bouncing away to dance around the console. "I'll just put us in the Vortex, then," he said, pressing a few buttons before pulling a lever.

"Great, I'm gonna take a nap." I nodded to him. Before I entered the hall, I turned back, "Doctor, how's your head feel?"

"Just dandy, Ruth," the Doctor said, not looking up from the console

I sighed.

"Alright."

I turned to go down the hallway.

"Ruth?"

"Yep?" I looked over my shoulder to see the Doctor staring at me, concerned. I smiled softly, noticing that his bowtie was drooping, as if sad.

"You sure you're alright?"

I laughed, despite myself, "I'm splendid."

"I'll bring you hot chocolate later!" The Doctor called after me as I walked away.

"Thank you!"

Yeah... Today wasn't so bad.

It was just a bit of an adventure.


End file.
